Head Case
by Jan Lee
Summary: NOVELLA. Kakashi can keep his hands to himself…except when Ino is involved. The Scarecrow of Konoha finds himself entangled in a strange love affair gone off the tracks, leaving him flailing for control over his present life, his memories, and his future. Kakashi-centric. Kakashi/Ino. Dramactionance. Citrus. Updated when convenient.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: **[ONESHOT.] Kakashi can keep his hands to himself…except when Ino is involved. Kakashi-centric. Kakashi/Ino. Citrus.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto.

**Rating: M, **for language and smut. Of course.

**A/N: **My mind's been on Kakashi and Ino as a couple, so I'm taking it out for a spin before I commit. It's not a pairing that's shipped very hard, but one that is interesting with a splash of hotness and it has oh-so-much potential. I guess we'll see.

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**~ Head Case ~**

**Chapter 1**

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She is young, so much younger, that thinking of the decade and a half age gap makes him feel creepy and perverted. So Kakashi doesn't. Instead, he thinks of what it would be like to fuck her over and over and over until they were both exhausted and incapable of movement and panting for air, what it would be like to lock his hands on her hips and his groin deep, deep inside her and stay that way.

She is loud, pushy, vain, barely out of her teens at twenty-one, and exceptionally, painfully, beautiful. Sakura is pretty; so is Shizune and, in her own way, Anko, but everything Ino _is _is beautiful. Beautiful blonde hair, beautiful clear-blue eyes, beautiful and proportionate ass and very buxom. She will complicate and cling and probably push him to seriously consider seppuku, but he already is, anyway, because his brain has latched on to the idea of sex with her and just won't let go. He's so far kept his aggressively horny and lecherous side in check, but he knows himself enough to feel his resistance cracking, unraveling at the seams, and there will come a point when Ino will fall underneath him and scream for him.

Why does she have to be so fucking beautiful? He can't understand it, and try as he might to avoid her, she's always there in his dreams or waiting outside a thought and there is no escape from the itching in his fingertips and the ache that threads his guts. He wishes desperately for an end to this obsessive escapade, but he can't sense any that will be him leaving her alone. Kakashi is in hell and though he can set aside his delusions for the mission, he can't do it in the same village as she.

Ino is the one who starts it. They are at a party- -some enormous, raucous thing Lady Hokage decided to throw- -so everyone is there, dancing, drinking, and making asses of themselves. Sakura and Ino have been competing for men since each arrived, and Kakashi has stayed out of the way, aloof as always, while he restrains a murderous part of him that wants to end the lives of each of Ino's successive suitors. The night wears on. Kakashi decides enough is enough. He's tortured himself plenty with watching Ino drunkenly flit around with different men, so he says goodbye to Sakura, who's nearly passed out on Naruto's shoulder, and Sai and Yamato, who, like him, watch everything with curiosity and amusement, respectively.

Outside is cool. He starts leaping along the rooftops, but realizes, quite belatedly, that someone is following after him. Those killing muscles tense and scenarios run through his mind; he can't prevent it, as he stops to hide in a narrow, shadowy crack between an air conditioning unit and a series of pipes, and when the pursuer lands, he senses, rather than sees, who it is and then he wants to hide forever. It is Ino who has sought him out.

Shit.

"Kakashi?"

Stepping out of his hiding spot is unwise. He does it because wisdom's for old men, and he's not an old man, yet. His movement turns her toward him, and the lights from the buildings around them shine on her hair and shadow her features, and his stomach is quivering like gelatin on a plate. Her body is curvaceous and alluring in the short, barely-there dress and heels she's decided to wear, and he wants to wrap the stream of hair around his hand and yank her into him and shove his nose into her cleavage. Heat is a shockwave inside him. There is thunder behind his ribs.

He will rebuff her and get home and try, again, to forget about her. "Is there a particular reason you followed me?"

"Yes." She stands her ground. "I wanted to speak to you in private."

Kakashi realizes she is not drunk. He'd watched her consume enough alcohol to waylay _him_ for an entire evening, but Ino is not slurring or swaying, nor does she even smell as though she's been drinking. Why would she go through the show of drinking and drunkenness?

"Oh?" he answers, stalling as he puzzles out Ino's mystery.

"You've been having a strong emotional response to me for a few months," she says. She is direct and confident and he can't help but like that. "I want to know why."

Deny everything. "You're mistaken." Besides, he doesn't even know why himself. It just _is._

Outright, she laughs. The brash sound of her laugh curls inside him and breeds to life something so insanely complex that he's lost in it in an instant, and he knows he's going to take her home and make his perversions come true. It's a matter of time, now. He is a sick, sick man, who'll die from Inoichi's mind techniques for defiling his precious daughter, but Kakashi's feet are on the path and he is determined to follow it no matter where it takes him. Regardless, he can still fight like hell to avoid it.

"Don't lie to me," she says after she's finished laughing. "Let's assume that I can tell when you're lying no matter what, and it'll be easier to cut the shit and tell me the truth, always. Remember, I'm not sweet Sakura."

She's so right about that last part, but very wrong about the first. Kakashi is not known for always telling the truth. How can he start doing it for her? "Ino. Go home." Stay away from me because I'll hurt you in the end, he really means, but he doesn't have the strength to be as honest as that.

She unnerves him when she closes in, stepping forward right into his personal space and leaning upwards so that she can glare into his eye. "I don't think you want me to. Know what I think?"

He really, really doesn't want to, but her mouth is so near and pink and luscious that he stares and remains silent. He watches her lips form the next words. "I think you are sexually attracted to me. I think," and her finger traces the skin above the edge of his mask from his earlobe to his nose, leaving a wake of tingles, "that you and I could be extremely compatible bedfellows. And," her chin notches up, her lips are a hair's-breadth away and he doesn't resist when her finger hooks the mask and tugs it down, revealing him, "I think we can find out how compatible we are. Right…about…now."

A hair's-breath is no longer separating them. Nothing is. The world becomes irrelevant. Her mouth is sweet and hot and wet and she demands all his attention so he gives it to her, knowing he's doing a wicked thing, but he can't deny her. She dips her tongue inside his mouth, rolling along his own tongue, and she does not let him back down and his lungs need air but he doesn't want to breathe. A ripple of heat surges through him, most of it below his belt-buckle. His hand discovers the ribbon of her hair, smooth, silky, tugs and twists the length. Her body curves into his. He knows this; this is seduction of the strongest sort because it's working on him, prying him loose from his vaulted cathedral of detachment, whirling him into the uncontrolled chaos where Ino apparently exists.

She draws away, a cocky little smirk on her face he'd love to wipe off except it suits her so damn well, and bats her eyelashes. See, she seems to say, I was right. It all becomes evident to him, why she put up a show at the party. The show was for the others to ensure her privacy with him. They would never know who she actually went home with. All to get what she wants from him. He bends to her will, knowing the end result will be destructive for both of them, but what was more regret? He had a whole lifetime of it. It wouldn't make a bit of difference for more. With the space, the heat and need back off.

"I do this on one condition," he tells her. She gazes at him evenly, undaunted, unlike Sakura who shyly glances away. "You keep your mouth shut about us. I don't care what you have to tell everyone else, this is between you and me. _Not _the village. Clear?"

"Crystal," she says, low, from her throat. "I swear it on the Hero Stone."

Ah, the sacred Hero Stone. She'll keep her word because Asuma taught her honor and she'd die before she'd break any rules her beloved master taught her. It is the same with him. They understand one another.

He says, "Good. Come with me."

They are a pair of shadows in the moonlight as they cross over rooftops and through the hale trees of Hidden Leaf, avoiding nighttime patrols and streetlights, and going in through the bedroom window of Kakashi's apartment as if they were on an assassination mission. No sound, no detection.

Directly in the center of the room, headboard against the wall, is his fiercely-made, simple double bed, with a single nightstand on the right-hand side. A bookshelf occupies the area directly to the right of the window and little else clutters the room. The door is opposite the window with the bathroom in the short hall on the other side of the doorway. Two framed pictures stand up, side-by-side, on his headboard. The only pictures in the entire apartment.

Kakashi moves further into the room, both to allow Ino access and to click on the lamp. In the yellow light, Ino glances around and nods her head as though she's confirming something to herself.

"Your bedroom is exactly how I imagined it," she says as she steps down out of her heels. Her hand on the bookshelf steadies her balance. "_Definitely_ how I imagined it. Sparse and…efficient. Very monkish."

_Monkish?_ Is that even a word? Kakashi wonders, opening the nightstand drawer. The condoms are where he left them, so he takes one out and sets it on the tabletop. "You've imagined my bedroom?"

"You're very self-contained," she answers, "and so the mystery of it all has an appeal. So, yes, I've imagined your bedroom."

He levels a gaze at her because he is unsure how to take her response. "I'll pretty the place up next time so it suits your womanly inclinations."

When she laughs, she puts her hand on her hip and leans back as though directing her laughter out of her stomach into the air at her head. He likes the even whiteness of her teeth, the wholeheartedness behind her laughs, almost audacious considering the bloody, hard-wearing profession they engage in.

"Unnecessary. I accept you and your habits as they stand," she answers after she's finished laughing. "Thank you for your courtesy, anyway. Now," she throws back her shoulders, narrows her eyes, "enough of this inane chatter. It's time for you to kiss me breathless."

Kakashi is happy to oblige, since he, too, has had enough of talking and being clothed and separate from her. He gets over there, clasps her by her narrow shoulders after removing his face mask, and commands her mouth. There is a sudden heaviness to the atmosphere, an intensity he's not felt for anyone in a very, very long time. She stretches her body along his, encircling his neck, opens her mouth to allow him to slide in his tongue. The kiss is languid, no less heat-stoked, and she returns his careful kiss sweetly.

It has turned out all wrong, this kiss. He cannot stop his heart from rolling in his chest, and he cannot stop Obito's voice from calling out over years and through the veil of death, from where he'd resided in Kakashi's heart and mind, to the cool, detached Kakashi in control that the warmth from Ino is like sunshine and that she deserves time and kindness and softness, not hard bitterness and abject control. _She deserves me,_ says the Obito-side, _and I deserve her. I want her._ The Kakashi-side bucks back, mentally wrangling for control, but knows the Obito-side is right, having offered a life in exchange for Kakashi's own. For always being the moral compass. For giving the gift of an eye.

Ino's hands trace the bunched muscles across his back and she pauses from the kiss. She had closed her eyes, and now they are open, searching for something inside Kakashi, blue sapphire and eternal.

"You're very tense," she says, and her concern is a direct hit to his emotional shield. Her fingers knead the muscles. "Do we need to slow down some?"

All right, Obito. You win. Kakashi draws his hands up her back, the material thin and gossamer under his palms as are the gentle undulations of her curves, and relaxes against her. He will allow Obito this. Kakashi steps a little back inside his mind, and the sudden presence is there, terrifyingly close to the surface, emotional and pushing forward into cobwebbed corridors Kakashi would rather stay out of. The sigh into her neck further implants the Obito-side on the throne.

"No. No," he repeats, finding a fresh coating of want where there was none originally, "I'm…settling into this. There are few women I tend to enjoy, and I want to enjoy you."

The Obito-side is so fucking charming, but he's not complaining as Ino smiles in pure feminine adoration. "What a lovely thing to say," she says. But she doesn't go back to kissing him. Instead, her pure smile falters. "I get the sense that…" She hesitates, her brow knits with confusion. "I feel like you switched on me. You were all gung-ho and now…not." In the moment of his silence, she shakes her head. "Sorry, it's nothing. Forget I said anything."

He opens his mouth to explain that he wasn't pausing because he thinks she's crazy, but that it was one of shock. No one has ever been able to track the switch before. He's done it on occasion with Sakura and Naruto, even with his long-term mission partner Tenzou, and after Obito's death, when Kakashi struggled between his guilt and horror and misery, with Rin. Rin always seemed to bring out the Obito-side. None of the people closest to him have ever caught on to the Obito-side. Maybe Rin, but she never said anything.

"I'm still gung-ho," he replies, pairing it with a chuckle, "but I'm not going to move as quickly as I wanted to at first."

Her cheeks flush, a pretty pink that falls over her cheeks, and Obito wants to see her without that filter Kakashi has put up. He cannot stop Obito. She watches him with rapt attention as he removes his hitai-ate and blinks open the Sharingan eye. Obito sees the shimmer of light under her skin that is her chakra, and it glows, makes her ethereal and damn near majestic to look at. And Ino's face is open-awed as she touches her thumb along the scar line, and then to his surprised disconcertment, her eyes overflow with tears without instigation or explanation.

"I can feel him inside you, Kakashi," she says, her warm hands caressing the sides of his face. He can't help but watch those tears fall down her pink cheeks. "He's so close to you, talking to you, _feeling _for you. You're doing this for him, aren't you? You are," she answers for him, breathlessly. "You've let him choose."

Kakashi's stomach bottoms out; he flails for control over the Obito-side because all of this is horribly wrong and frightening to Kakashi's necessary aloofness, but Obito has latched onto Ino's comprehension of him and outright refuses to let go. Obito has seen everything Ino has to offer and likes it, wants it for himself, and won't bow down, much the same as he did many years ago on that tragic mission. Kakashi is outmatched in his own mind; he has given Obito too much power and all he can do now is allow.

He takes her mouth, tastes fresh salt- -loves the taste of that compassion- -and coaxes her tongue with his. She complies, angling her head for a more intimate kiss. Her mood has aligned to his; he can feel her giving in, weakening under his gentle and thorough teasing, and when he nibbles her lip, testing the delicate skin between teeth, she inhales sharply as her fingers curl in his hair. His hands have become restless. They ease up her back then down to her hips and up again, so slowly, memorizing her womanly curves. Ino is narrow and slim at her waist, but her breasts swell nicely and fit his hands, soft and full and her nipples immediately react to his touch by shrinking and standing erect under the material.

He has hardened as well, his body aches for her from a deepness that he has never felt before. Ino has unzipped his flak-jacket, removing it, and has discovered his chest and abdomen under his shirts. As he uses teeth and aggression to get off his gloves, her hands play over his ridges and dips, brushing his nipples with her thumbs which madden him with bolts of lightning to his groin. She is insistent, tugging off his shirts and then unbuckling his belt and helping him out of his pants, and he is the first one naked. Then sparks shoot through him like stars when she moves her mouth to scrape her teeth on his neck and she kisses a hot trail to the middle of his chest; he is burning as he curves his hands over satin thighs to the delectable globes of her ass.

When he clutches at her, grinding her hips forward so she can feel him and his response, she raises her arms and detaches from his chest. He gets it and wings the dress off her. The dress had not accommodated her wearing a bra, and so she stands before him wearing a pair of lacy panties and nothing else. Now it's him who is in awe, both Kakashi and the Obito-side beholding the view of her well-shaped female form.

"You are so beautiful," he states viciously because it's true. "If I didn't know better, I'd worship you for being a goddess."

Again, she laughs. Just throws her head back and lets it flow from her diaphragm, and her hands go to her pale hair, twisting the long ribbon of it through the hair-tie and shaking it so that the loose strands tumble over her shoulders and wisp around her face. Her eyes narrow, thick lashes heavy and still glistening from her earlier display of tears, and then she slides her panties down her slender thighs, preventing him from the honor of doing it himself. He makes a noise in protest, but she upturns her hand to stop him.

"Does this induce you to worship me?" she asks.

It's a tease, he knows it's a tease, but it's such a good one that he deadpans, "My goddess, what do you ask of me?"

Her grin is delirious enough, infectious enough, that he returns it. They've found a game they can play; Obito is excited and exuberant inside him. She wiggles the fingers of her upturned hand at him. "Kiss my fingers one by one."

"As you wish, my goddess."

Her fingers are slim, the entire hand small and delicate, easily enclosed in one of his hands, and he rubs his lips over her knuckles then presses each with a kiss, one by one, like she requested, and to test her, he flips her hand to expose her wrist and nibbles the thin, sensitive skin there. A gasp. He kisses her palm, swirls his tongue. This time she gasps, "Kakashi!"

The huskiness of her voice rolls a new tenseness inside him, sets his heart tripping in his chest. "What now, my goddess?" he asks, cupping her hand to his face because she hasn't touched him for too long.

"Use your hands, and only your hands, to touch me," she answers.

It is _he _who wants to be touched, but he complies because Obito is in control, and Obito loves games. The need inside him is tremendous, and he realizes this only because when he reaches out to her shoulders, he is shaky. Her breathing turns jagged and harsh as soon as he sets his hands on her and caresses the smooth juncture of her neck and collarbones. Her breasts are creamy, pale, heaving with her increased breathing, and she cries out when he massages the soft sides of them. He didn't think touching without kissing would be torturous. It is, but oh, so arousing, his groin tight and radiating heat, and he rounds his hands over her shoulders to her back and down to her hips. Everywhere is silk and feverish and flush, and when he gets to between her thighs, he tucks the side of his finger up underneath her.

Barely, he comprehends the wet heat before Ino is devouring his mouth, breaking the rules of their game, and shoves him to the bed. He wants to torture _her_, but that's Kakashi's, not Obito's, sexual practice speaking, so he kisses back as fiercely, biting, licking, sucking any skin of hers he can find and she is lust personified underneath him. Nails rake up his spine, the pain immersing with the shivering pleasure of her soft, toned body curved to his, and the sensations seem to find the direct route straight to his clenched gut.

And then he is pushing himself into a hot sheath of pliant, slick muscles. Ah, _fuck,_ the pressure is so unimaginable and it'd been too long since he'd last had a woman, and it's _him _who's grunting like some animal rutting in heat. Hands find purchase somewhere on the bed, on her, maybe, he can't tell, and his hips curl to take him to her very molten center. Again, again, again, there's no stopping it now. She's wild under him- -didn't he _know _she'd scream his name?- -and bucking to his rhythm, and the heat inside him spikes, punches through to his core, winds him up nice and tight before- -_Kakashi! Ah, oh, God, yes, there! THERE! YES, AH, YES!_- -she clamps heat around him and shrieks incomprehensibly, and he understands and finally obtains shuddering, ecstatic, rapturous absolution through a hot spurt inside her.

Everything calms down; the quieted rush of waves on the beach after a storm. He can't quite wrap his head around what has happened, so he continues to breathe with his face stuck in Ino's neck and doesn't attempt to gather energy to move. Breathlessness and weakness are not from the fact that he's out of shape or hasn't had sex in a long time, but from how explosive his orgasm was. Is he all right? Yes. Yes, he's still intact. He feels like he's sprinted a few miles, though. Sweat has broken out on his forehead, back, and chest, and the smell of Ino's sweat mingles with his in the air. Her hand abstractly toys with his hair.

"I hope you're not calling it a night," Ino says and he hears the lilt of amusement. "I'll feel gypped if you are."

He huffs a laugh into her neck. "Have high expectations, don't you?"

"You _are_ Hatake Kakashi. And I've heard tell of sleepless nights from ladies who've succumbed to your…indelible charms."

He is not sure which part he should respond to- -the indelible charms (he has none) or the talking ladies (sworn to secrecy as Ino was). Neither, he decides, as he gropes a pert breast with a rosy topping. "Sleepless is an over-exaggeration. I aim for quality over quantity."

The giggle erupts from her throat when he brushes his nose on her cheek. "Then I suppose we _could _call it a night," she says, "but I think you could definitely find a second wind."

She surprises him by locking her legs around his waist- -easy to do since he hasn't even slipped out of her yet- -and twists to flip their position; gravity releases his physical connection to her. Her hands are quick, capturing his wrists and pinning them over his head, and the Obito-side is grinning because he loves how she handles him. She is grinning, too.

"And if you _can't_ find a second wind, then I guess I'll have to keep you here until you do," she says, lowly, seductively, leaning against him to kiss him.

The kiss begins with a gentle peck on each corner of his mouth, softly brushing, before he parts his lips, inviting, but she doesn't accept his invitation. She's pacing herself, drawing her mouth to kiss and suckle at his earlobe. Her hot breath and wet, teasing tongue causes sparks to shoot along the causeway of his spine, splaying out to his nerve-endings. His body stirs for her. Her hands trail up the underside of his arms- -the skin so unused to being touched that the delicate brushes of her fingertips hit him with hard eroticism- -heat stokes under his belly, and he can tell he is hardening up again.

She returns her focus to his mouth, and this time, she meets his tongue with hers. There is something so good about her taste, natural and sweet, like honey (_and how appropriate as it is made from_ _flowers, _mentions Obito) and the kiss angles and deepens and quickly becomes impassioned. All her soft parts bump and rub along him, but his reaction to her is not external, it is internal as well, and a hidden tendril in the dark of his heart curls forward to Ino's light. Obito and Kakashi agree on one point: he has tasted her mouth, sure. But he wants to taste all of her, where she is a woman, if she'll let him.

She notices when he begins scrunching down a bit to put space between his head and the headboard, and interrupts the kiss to ask, "What're you doing?"

"Move up here," he tells her. "I want you to straddle my shoulders."

Confusion crosses her features, but after a moment she complies and begins crawling up the length of his body. Experienced Kakashi sees that this is new to her, so he guides her with helpful hands on her ass; she rolls her eyes when he shoots her a leer. She grabs the headboard so she can get her knees comfortable on either side of his head, and he can fucking smell her arousal and it runs his blood hot through him- -he is ready to lap at her- -but she doesn't lower herself.

"I feel so undignified in this position," she murmurs. "And do you mind if I turn the pictures facedown for now? I don't think I feel right about having your head between my legs with everyone looking at me."

Kakashi laughs. "Yes, fine."

He watches her breasts sway as she puts the pictures down. She looks at him, her hair draping over her face and shoulders. "Are you sure you'll be all right like this? I mean, it's _ah, oh God!_"

The grip on her ass is perfect for bringing her to his mouth. Such heat there as he spreads his tongue along her smoothly waxed crevice, and she tastes like sex and salt, but also a tart kind of sweetness. His tongue is a wicked tool as he practices with it as often as he gets a chance, and he knows how to slip the tip of it in the right place, how to coax her clit, how the burst of fresh taste indicates her body's response. Her eyes are closed, she is alternately cooing and grunting, her spine arched with her breasts thrust out, her hands clenched on the headboard, and he uses his grip on her to rock her hips. A shock shudders through her; she is nearing a climax.

Her noises, more than anything, get to him, crawl inside to his pulsing, tightened balls and erection, and he must have her riding him. When he retracts his tongue and pushes her to indicate she move, he sees she pants for breath and her skin shines with sweat. Her limbs do not function because she is so doped up on the pleasure chemicals pumped into her blood, and so he has to be patient as she navigates the landscape of his body. Holding his hardened dick steady, she slides down on him, and she seems to whimper/cry/groan when she takes him all in at once.

He hisses from the fire of their joining, revels in how the clamp of muscles burns heat up his shaft, searing outwards in his stomach and up his chest and drowning his brain. Ino does not need assistance in rolling her pelvis in concentric circles; he accentuates the movement with timed thrusts. They've fallen into a harmonic rhythm now, his heart hammering in his chest, and it is all Kakashi can do to withhold another earnest orgasm.

Her eyes are on him, but past him, seeing all he is, all he can be, and Obito desires her more for it. The pacing changes, quickens, and becomes rampant- -she is riding him like he is a unbroken stallion- -and Ino leans back, screams his name when he finds her secret spot, and trembles violently, her hand slamming on his chest with a resounding smack. He holds her up there for as long as he can, but it does him no good to delay the crumbling edge he stands on. His body gives in to the flash of sharpened, honed points of bliss as they scissor through his wound bindings and expose him to raw emotion and physical satisfaction. He empties into her, and having risen above the heavens, he begins the slow descent back to himself.

Ino's hair is in pieces over her face, and she slumps face-first to his chest. Her panting sends air brushing over his skin. He can't help but time his breathing to match hers.

"You win," she mumbles. Then she looks up, and her adoration and respect shine through her eyes. "I need some rest. Is it all right that I stay here with you?"

The Obito-side has kept control and thinks that keeping her in the circle of his arms, skin flush to his chest, is a favorable idea. Kakashi does not cuddle, but he says, "You may stay here."

Her smile is a happy one as she eases herself to his side and fidgets around with her hair and limbs for comfort. Kakashi reaches out to switch off the light; it's then he realizes there's still an unopened condom on the nightstand. Cold prods around in his stomach, but he refuses to worry over it. He'll tell her to take a morning-after pill- -she's a medic, she has access to them- -and she'll be a good girl and do what he says. The Obito-side shrinks away, little by little, but not enough that Kakashi can't prevent his arm from draping over Ino's body to tuck her to his chest. Her breathing has already slowed, soft sighs in the dark, and he slips into the ether of sleep, warm, cocooned together with her, his new lover.

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**A/N:** Well, I added a bit to the ending there, and will most likely continue this into a second chapter. I really recieved mixed reviews, from 'I love it' to 'Get rid of the Obito-side'! I'm thinking that I'll give a better frame of reference in the second chapter to explain the power of the Obito-side, but I don't think it's something that I want to lose as it appeals to my sense of uniqueness, I guess, and how Kakashi deals with emotions and people. Also expect, as I seem to love it, some drama between Kakashi and Ino. Right now, I do not know when the next update will occur for this story. I suppose you all will need to continue to ply me with your thoughts and reactions. =)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** I finally finished this chapter. Beware the drabble. I have a general idea of the outcome of the story, but again, it'll take some time to update. I know some of you cringed with the dual-personality thing, so I backed off that pedal here a bit. Hopefully what I have is sufficient for those of you who _did _like the Obito-side. Anyway, please enjoy. =)

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**Chapter 2**

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Kakashi wakes up in morning sunshine with the taste of regret on the back of his tongue. Ino is on her stomach, her face turned away from him, and he is half on top of her with his arm wrapped around underneath her. Sunlight peels away the shadowed corners of his guilt and reveals it bare. He is warm from her, but since this is Asuma's favorite student he has taken to bed, the regret becomes cold steel in his guts.

He should not have crossed that line. _He _is the adult and the teacher, and he should have had enough self-control to tell her no and send her away, but the Obito-side ran too rampant last night, stunningly powerful, and instead of the detachment Kakashi usually keeps with his lovers, he's made the mistake of connecting emotionally to Ino. Obito has never been so strong before, not even with Rin, and Kakashi knows Ino will be hurt from the sudden withdrawal of Obito, but it has to be this way.

Kakashi is always good at self-preservation.

Then Ino stirs. His heart skitters some in his chest because he is shameful and doesn't want to see pain shatter her, and because he's such a fucking coward where emotions are concerned, he closes his eye and breathes as shallowly as he can manage to feign sleep. _You are always a coward, _Obito whispers as the sheets rustle. Kakashi does not dispute. Ino wiggles free from his arm, carefully, slowly. He knows she is trying to avoid disturbing him. What will she do? Will she curry favors by plying him with breakfast or morning sex? Her hair brushes across his face; lips drop a kiss on his eye and mouth.

Then her lips brush on his ear as she whispers, "Thank you for picking me."

Does she know he's faking? He decides to wait her out. More rustling. Her presence is over his head and then he hears two quiet clacks as she sets upright the pictures on the headboard. Weight shifts the mattress, and he continues to track her movement in his vicinity. Cloth rustles as she pulls on her dress from last night. There is the crackle of paper. Soft scribbling- -she is writing him a note. A love note? A request for him to see her again? Finally, the window slides open and shuts with a definitive snap. He is alone in his bedroom.

What message has she left? he wonders. He sits up in bed, thankful, even though he is vaguely sorry- -remnants of the Obito-side- -that she is gone. On his nightstand, she has left a note to him.

_Kakashi,_ (Her script is gorgeous, like everything else Ino is).

_Don't regret last night. I wasn't drunk when I made the decision. You did not take advantage. I knew what I was getting into. Also, don't worry about any surprises nine months from now. I'll take care of it._

_Ino_

_PS- -I don't expect anything from you, unless you want me to._

Exoneration from sin is what she gives him with the note. She has neatly snipped the emotional attachment between them, has taken responsibility for her actions (and his, really), and frees him from further obligation to her. _She's done everything for you._ Kakashi agrees, and yet, a sense of discomfiture trickles like a brook inside him. The Yamanaka clan's mind techniques are a mystery to someone even as knowledgeable about ninjutsu as he is. Was it possible that Ino could tap into his thoughts and moods as though he was an open spring?

Asuma thought so. Before his demise, Asuma had sat next to Kakashi at Leaf Blown, their favored bar, and said how uncanny Ino's abilities to read a person were. He himself had not been sure if she was using her clan's techniques or if it was simply because she was so _good._ The scary thing, Asuma had told him, was that he was pretty sure it was the latter, not the former. Considering the fact that Kakashi fiercely protects the borders of his mind, Ino's capacity for mind-reading is terrifying enough send a shiver down his spine. And if she's as good as her father is…

In any case, everything is over. She is gone from him, her beauty, laughter, and softness, and he will not be diving headlong into an affair with her. And he wishes it could be as simple as that since it is Kakashi that feels a want for her hours later that bleeds into days that blurs into weeks. The want is all Kakashi, not Obito, and the largeness of the want is such that if Kakashi is to flick a pebble into it, he's pretty sure that when the pebble hits the bottom, the sound will echo around cavernous walls. Every moment becomes torture, a heinous withdrawal of her scent, her hair, her skin under his hands, his body connected to hers. He resists and denies and fights and struggles until he can bear no more and gives in.

Night provides ample cover for him to travel to her home- -a neat house in a nice neighborhood within walking distance of downtown Konoha- -and he peeks into a window, fulfilling the part of the voyeur pervert. Damn, he curses inwardly, when he sees that she is not alone. The window he chose overlooks her living room, and he sees that she is in the midst of entertaining a slumber party attended by vixens. Sakura, Tenten, Hinata are there with her. A younger generation, which he helped bring into the world and protect, have grown into beautiful women. Ino, of course, is most beautiful. He sees his opportunity when she rises from the nest of blankets and pillows, laughter, drinks and snacks, and strides off down a hallway.

He anticipates her arrival into her bedroom. The bedroom window is simplistic to jimmy open and he is there when she enters the darkened room and closes the door behind her. A moment cloaked in quiet. She doesn't immediately move into the center of the room.

"Kakashi? Is that you?" she whispers to the shadowed corners. "Are you here?"

How was it possible for her to sense him? But the question escapes when he realizes he still has time to go away. Hesitation plagues him. He should _not _be here, his sensible side cries, he should leave right now and give her space and punish himself for this stupid fling by accepting an S-ranked mission with a low survival rate. All that withers under the gentle presence pressing against the walls of his heart. _Go to her, _Obito whispers, _she wants it to be you this time._ Kakashi follows Obito's directions because Obito knows best.

"It's me," he replies.

She steps forward, her arms grope into the dark, searching for him, and he stands to intercept her. When their bodies make contact, he feels as though the sun collides inside him. A flow of heat, a lifeline of burning arousal, empties into his very veins and in a matter of seconds, he devours her mouth. His hands carve into her gentle curves and from far away, he cannot believe he is the instigator of a coupling at such an inappropriate time. He can't believe it, but does nothing to stop it. Her body keeps close as he half-stumbles with her into the bathroom. Ino closes and locks the door behind them.

The light illuminates the smallish area. Directly to the left is the sink and mirror with cabinets, the toilet to the right of sink, and the bath along the far wall. Towels line the wall to his right, and everything is tasteful and coordinated nicely. Already, he knows how he will make this work.

Without complaint, as though she understands his desperate, vibrating need, she tears off her pajamas, once again depriving him of unclothing her himself. Two articles of clothing were all she was wearing. Her lips are pink, so are her cheeks; in fact, all of Ino's skin is flush and her hair is a curtain of white-blonde, loose just like he wants it to be. Those breasts are as pert as he remembers them, her hips are such a subtle swelling, skin pale and smooth. Wherever he touches her there is silken heat, dark wetness where her thighs meet, and his mouth and tongue are greeted with a torrent of pliant kissing and nipping. She goes straight for his belt buckle, not hesitating to unleash his tumescence, and he draws her around to lean her over the sink.

"Kakashi," she whispers as she bends for him, his hand already falling between them to guide his length inside her, "I don't know if I can be quiet about this."

"Do your best," he says. "Try not to scream."

As if to prove her assumption, she grunts when he penetrates her, the constricted, slick hotness heavenly to his deprived mind, and the grunt tapers off into a low groan from her throat. He'd missed that husky voice of hers. Under his hands, she further lowers her shoulders and seems to stretch and curl her waist, like a cat in the sun, pressing back against him, burying him deeper to her very crux. His insides hum, filled to brimming with frenetic, potential energy coiled and kept secret for the length of time since he last saw her.

His hips pump in an age-old rhythm known to men and women throughout time, and that is what he feels at the moment- -the eternal mating ritual passed down from their ancestors, perfected as an art-form, or perhaps in Kakashi's case, as a religious experience. She is so fucking beautiful; she's a goddess on earth; he inexorably gravitates to her. He's not lasting much longer. Each slide, each thrust forward, shoots lightning in his nerves, a dancing of sparks that build and compile with glorious intensity. Ino does her damned best to keep herself from crying out, but he feels the pleasure ripping her apart, her whimpers bordering on sobs, her knuckles white from the grip she has on the sink, and she coos and grunts, and like before, her sexy sounds get inside him, curling and fingering sweet shivers down his spine.

Then she shoots a seductive, heavy-lidded glance over her shoulder at him; it's a moment only, and gone, as her face contorts when she comes, body shaking free into euphoria- -the glance has rushed him forward over the edge and he joins her with a climax of his own, a white-hot flash of heat that gushes out of him as his muscles contract- -yes, yes, _at last_- -and prolong the orgasm. And it is over disappointingly quick, but oh, so, so very necessary. He can't think or move, so he stands, staring at her back and where his fingers have dug into her flesh leaving a splay of reddening marks.

A knock at the door surprises them both. "Ino?" Kill him now; it's Sakura who stands on the other side. Fucking fuck. "Ino, are you okay? We're getting worried…you've been gone a while."

Fear and nerves- -Kakashi is _never _nervous but this does it- -freeze him as a cold sweat breaks out where once there was heat. He searches for a quick escape, but there is not a window in the bathroom. Perhaps hiding in the shower would suffice? A genjutsu? And the Sharingan is always an option. He forgets just who his lover is in his plans for a quick getaway.

"Oh," Ino says, and how she keeps her breathlessness out of her voice he doesn't know, "I'm sorry."

"You sounded like you were crying. What's wrong?"

"I'm…I don't want to talk about it," Ino says. Tears well in her eyes as she pushes him back. A touch mystified at her ploy, he steps away and pulls free of her. The rustling and his footsteps seem overloud in the confined space. "I'm okay. Really."

"I-_no_…I can hear you crying in there. Is it because of that mystery man of yours?"

Kakashi shoots Ino a look and mouths, 'Mystery man?' She smirks even as the fake tears continue to roll down her cheeks.

She says, "I _said _I didn't want to talk about it! Besides," and she sniffs quite convincingly, "I didn't want this to be a pity party. Please don't tell the others."

"You sure? I mean," and to Kakashi's, and what looks like to be Ino's, horror, Sakura tries the doorknob, "we're your closest friends. We can help you get through this…but you have to trust us a little. Who's the mystery man?"

"Sakura," more sniffling, "I'm good now. I needed a moment to recover when Tenten started talking about her and Neji. That's all. I'm over it."

A moment's of pause. Ino puts her hands together in a mimicry of praying. He knows exactly what she means. The doorknob stops rattling. Then, "Okay, if you're really fine…"

"Yeah. Will you smooth things over with the girls for me? I'll be out soon."

"If you say so."

Ino visibly relaxes as Sakura seems to be giving in to Ino's gentle urgings. "Thanks. You're the best."

Sakura's voice comes from deep within the bedroom when she replies, "I know I am. Hurry up. I don't like stalling the others."

"I'll be there as quick as I can."

Silence answers Ino's comment and they both wait with bated breath until they hear the door to the bedroom shut, with enough time in between for Kakashi to realize how dangerous of thing they did and how close to being caught and flayed alive _he'd _been. In tandem, they release held breath and Ino goes about replacing her pajamas. The bathroom closes them in enough that she brushes and bumps against him as she pulls on her shirt and bottoms. When he opens his mouth to speak, she slaps her hand over it and puts a finger up in a silent signal.

"Stay back a moment," she whispers, as she opens the door. "Let me check to make sure we're clear."

Like a sylph, she slips out of the crack in the doorway- -to give him cover, she keeps the door closed- -and then she returns and invites him into the bedroom. In the quiet and time, his nerves have settled. They will not be discovered tonight, at least; he has a good enough sense of smell that he can tell there is no one waiting around in Ino's room, but it helps to have visual confirmation. The lights are still off, and he prefers it this way- -she's even opened the window for him in case he needs an emergency escape. She has thought of everything.

"When are you by yourself next?" he hears himself ask.

Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. It's as though he has no more self-control where she is concerned, and he finds he can care less about self-control when she helps him feel…normal, or perhaps more accurately, _alive._ Alive, Kakashi realizes. That's how he feels- -blood pulsing through his veins, his mind open, his sexual appetite sated and well pleased. She's an indulgence, a decadence of the richest sort for him, and of course, for Obito too. He will rot his teeth out on her if he's not careful. _You're always too careful, _the Obito-side reminds him and even though the voice is inside Kakashi's head, it manages to sound annoyed.

She does not answer immediately and in fact, she looks hard at him. He waits her out, until she finally says, "Are you sure that's what you want? I didn't expect you to come back _this _time." Her hand ghosts under his jaw; the touch fades through the material, but doesn't lessen the potency of tingling heat. "Prolonging our affair…is it what you want?"

He can't answer her question because he has no ready answer. He settles on saying, "I don't know."

"Hm. I see." Ino rubs a thumb over the cloth that covers his mouth. Her face is marble-smooth in the starlight filtering from the window. He wants the open night air when confusion and anxiety spread through him for no discernable reason. She says, "Let's not make this complicated for ourselves. You come here whenever you needto come. I'll keep an open door for you. And it's probably better for youto seek me out, as you are much stealthier than I am. Can we all agree on that?"

_Can we all agree?_ _Can we _all…? Her words hook and stick into the side of his brain, but wanting out overrides the strangeness of her word choice. "Agreed."

"Time to go, mystery man," she tells him, patting his cheek, and she turns away from him without further touch or conversation. Already he is outside the window, in mid-bound to the next roof over, but his ears are keen enough to pick up her faint farewell, "Good night."

It is a good night until the next morning, when his life decides to pick up where he'd left off before the torrid affair with Ino began. Lady Hokage calls him into her office and gets right down to business, her brown eyes hard and her breasts swaying with each miniscule movement. To whit, it's an assassination mission and he's teamed with his old friend and partner Tenzou, who, Kakashi prays, will keep Kakashi's head in the game and not wandering around Ino's eyes, Ino's cleavage, Ino's legs, Ino's everything.

The thing about Tenzou_ is_ that he is Kakashi's oldest, closest friend and fulfills the word 'partner' in more than one capacity. As such, Tenzou seems to have eyes on Kakashi's inner-dialogues- -they've come to a point in their lives where they can share a glance and know precisely what the other is thinking, as close to a wife as Kakashi will ever have, and even when he broods on the tree branch next to him, Tenzou knows enough to look over with dark, quiet eyes and ask, "What's going on with you?"

He knew Tenzou would track his thoughts, he knew but why is he still surprised it happens? The complexity of his emotions swarm up and around him, a drowning hive of wasps that sting him with the million regrets and secrets and agonies to torment Kakashi on a daily basis. Had he wanted Tenzou to ask? Had he wanted to reveal this…thing…with Ino, whatever it is?

That's when Kakashi decides evasion is the best maneuver and so aims for Tenzou's own secret love life. "I was wondering how you and Anko were getting on. Does she continue to terrorize you in bed?"

Tenzou's face becomes a grimace and he backs off from questioning Kakashi. Their mission is a success in that the objectives are completed, but another shred of Kakashi's humanity is left behind when the target's wife throws herself over her husband's corpse and the children stand by bawling out their eyes. He and Tenzou hadn't meant to linger, but the circumstances had called for it, leading to this regrettable scene, and so they escape when the opportunity presents itself in the deep heart of the night.

It is in the night's heart that Kakashi thinks of thick, red blood splattering from the target's neck to the pristine carpet, of the despair and horror in the wife's screams, and remembers vividly Obito's right half crushed under an immoveable boulder and a jonin-child genius trying in vain to free his new-found best friend from death, but the strength and determination aren't there. Death's clutch is inescapable and so a promise was made, a promise that Kakashi could not keep at any cost, which breaks his fucking heart every time and every time he swears it won't happen again but it does, constantly, in his mind and he can't get away from it. He needs to live for Obito because Obito couldn't live for himself and Kakashi did not deny the burden of Obito's energetic and caring personality.

Obito had understood him; he'd understood Obito. Obito deserved better than that death. He'd deserved better than Kakashi. It's why Kakashi imagines Obito's presence and voice because it is as close to justice as Kakashi can get for Obito.

Then there Tenzou is beside him, serene and comfortable in his skin even though he'd been mentally and physically tortured as a young child due to Orochimaru's experimentations. Kakashi wants that serenity and peace but it eludes him, an invisible banner in ghostly wind that cannot be found no matter how much searching is done for it. So he gives in to the wracking memories and picking at those scars that lacerate his soul.

Tenzou glances over and catches Kakashi's eye on him. "I can tell when something's bothering you. Do you want to share?"

The peace offering is so like Tenzou, who likes to fix it if it's broken, but the tumult inside would be incomprehensible to someone as mentally straight-forward as Tenzou is. Kakashi relaxes his shoulders and smiles through the mask. "No."

He watches as Tenzou bites off a frown. They do not have anything else to say and so the remainder of the trip is completed in silence up to reporting to Lady Hokage. Kakashi is not being fair to Tenzou, but fairness makes no difference to someone like the Scarecrow of Konoha. Though he returns to Konoha in triumph, physically healthy, his emotional state is beaten and battered. He can think of one salve for his wounds and she is on duty at her father's flower shop. Patiently, Kakashi waits for her to finish locking doors and waving goodnights to her neighbors before beating her to her house and arranging himself in the leafy branches of a tree to watch.

She arrives. He decides to give her a few minutes to settle in, but his patience has suddenly taken a vacation, and he writhes with neediness to see her and hear her and feel her. As he shifts his weight to move to a window, he senses he is not alone. Quick as a blink, he aborts his movement forward, molds his chakra faster than he ever thought possible, and chooses to hide in the earth at the base of the tree. Who has tracked him? Why? In cool neutral, his internal ruin forgotten, he studies the world above him with nose and ear. Long minutes pass. Nothing turns a leaf; had he been paranoid?

No…someone is there. Top notch, whoever it is, but as he continues to listen to his nose and ears, the picture of the shinobi is painted and Kakashi feels bold anger creep into him. Tenzou. Tenzou, who he trusts and understands, has followed him. Whether because Kakashi was focused on Ino or because Tenzou is much better than he, Kakashi cannot believe he missed the tail. He realizes he must fall back, that Tenzou will figure out where Kakashi is if he hasn't already, but Kakashi can't help but seriously toy with the idea that he should capture and interrogate his mission partner to see what he knows.

Then resignation overcomes him. His plans with Ino are over and if he actively interrogates Tenzou, Tenzou will glean from him unnecessary information about Kakashi's own activities. There is nothing left to do then to go into a strategic retreat. Kakashi burrows through the earth, comes up many meters away from where he started, and strolls along as if nothing happened, hands tucked in his pockets. He senses Tenzou tailing him, but after it is clear Kakashi is heading home, Tenzou backs off and leaves for good once Kakashi enters the front door.

The night is ripe with emptiness and the lack of sleep.

Kakashi isn't stupid enough to try again until Tenzou is off on another mission somewhere a few days later. This time, he catches Ino at home in the kitchen washing dishes. He comes in through a window in the living room this time, to switch things up, and she greets him with a warm smile when he straightens up to face her. Missing someone alive is not a concept that he practices because he's got enough issues, but seeing Ino and being in her presence forces him to accept that he has missed her. She strides forward, arms open, and throws them around his neck.

"Welcome home," she says. "It's good to see you again."

The heat rolling off her body in the embrace staggers him. His hands stroke her back and the push of emotion is nearly too strong when he attempts to break free and she doesn't let go, crushing him in a hug that is equal parts motherly and lover-ly. He feels her surging inside of him, but can't tell if she's doing it on purpose or by accident. Emotions pressurize inside him, the _wrong _emotions, ones he can't have, won't have, shouldn't have.

He is someone who doesn't cry. Ever. It's not that he won't, but he flat-out doesn't know how. Obito taught him anyone can cry, but it doesn't matter. Whatever hardwiring is necessary for crying doesn't come with Kakashi's ilk, and so he can't understand why his eyes are stinging if he can't smell smoke anywhere- -only smoke can make his eyes burn like this. The wrong emotions continue to build, piercing, laying on him thick and suffocating.

"Air, Ino." Panic forces him to lie. "I can't…breathe."

"Oh, oops!" She releases him with a chuckle. The space breaks apart what had been pushing at him. "Sorry, Kakashi. I just…really missed you."

"Thank you," he tells her, for lack of something better. He decides to stall to get his emotions stabilized. "Have you been busy?"

He smiles when she makes a disgusted noise at the back of her throat. "You would _not _believe my schedule."

She explains all about her life's little dramas and triumphs as she finishes up in the kitchen. His attention on her is complete and absolute as he watches her lips and eyes and movements, and in the space, the anxiety and torment calm. Anxiety and torment calm, yes. Everything about her stokes hidden embers inside him, a rising of slow arousal that conflicts with the impatience he had getting there. The world feels as though it has enclosed him in her kitchen and has given her to him as a point of focus, a talisman to touch and pour his sorrows and regrets into. He doesn't remember when he moved, but he finds he has trapped her against the counter, his hands cupping her face, his gaze fixed on the endless blue of her eyes. Obito, inside him, sighs, but it's Kakashi who hesitates.

Can he trust her? He doesn't know yet.

"It's okay," she tells him. Her hands caress his and she nods, as if confirming her words. "Kakashi, it's okay."

He can't be sure what she means, but she's giving permission and to torture them both, he kisses her through the cloth mask. It is slow, and weighted, that kiss, which matches what he's been feeling for her. She takes initiative to peel down the mask with her teeth and touch her mouth to his, tenderly, so tenderly his heart takes a turn in his chest and he has to redirect the pain into a harder kiss. After the stifling mask, her wet mouth and tongue sear jagged pleasure into his gut. He's waited and hung back long enough.

Roughly, he gathers her in his arms, ignoring her sputters of protest, and hauls her to the bedroom where he tears off her clothes and allows her to return the favor. For whatever reason, she is particularly lusty, gasping and sighing with his touches on her soft flesh, taking in full measure the deep kisses he gives her, and using her legs and fingers to alternately hold him in place and explore him. She is pale and creamy skin, so utterly responsive, and allowing. When he finally slides inside her, she is quivering and drenched with lust, her knees thrown out to beg him for mercy.

There is no mercy for her, nestled so deep in her slick folds, and he takes her with patience and a steadiness that he didn't know existed inside him. She is wild, body bucking and arms thrashing for purchase, his name a stutter from her lips, but he keeps his hands anchored to her hips so he can control the pace. His brain turns inside out to magnify the pleasure shocking through his system, the complete surrender consuming him, and yet there is hesitation, a sensation that a façade he'd worn for his whole life crackling under what Ino gives him. It is vaguely uncomfortable. Obito would want Ino to know what's underneath; Kakashi doesn't think he has the power to let her that close.

When they are finished with their lovemaking, they dress and he keeps her company as she makes dinner, somehow convincing him to stay for awhile. On the couch outside the smallish dining area, he reads his erotic literature- -an old friend that he can always rely on to settle him. As for dinner, he has no preference for what goes in his mouth, a habit that has been ingrained thanks to a war and his years in ANBU, so he listens as she speaks to him even though his nose is stuck in that book and monitors the delicious smells wafting from the kitchen.

After they've eaten and she's cleaning up with his help, she boxes him into the kitchen, putting her hands on his shoulders. "Listen. I wanted to thank you for staying for dinner."

Her hair tempts him in that golden drape over her shoulders. "You were the one who wanted to cook," he replies. He loses to the temptation and smoothes down her hair. "And I don't think it's in me to turn down a home-cooked meal."

"You don't seem to have had many of those." Her fingers pluck at his flak jacket. She seems plagued with worry, something he's not familiar with from her. What could be eating at her with such intensity? "You can come for dinner any time you want."

There is an awkward pause and he can tell she wants him to prompt her. Curious, he steps from her. "Ino, what is it?"

She bites her lip. "I promise I'm not trying to wrangle you into commitment or…jealousy or something…but I wondered how you would feel if I had a date with Inuzuka Kiba?"

His first reaction is to think. He understands that their relationship is not a committed one, as she said, and so she should be free to make a commitment to someone else if she desires. But would that create a burden on her? Relationships are complex enough, but having a side partner and a main partner…wouldn't there be some risk involved? Also, he's never admitted to knowing everything about women, and she could be testing him, wanting him to say no so she knows where she stands or wanting him to give her the go-ahead because she wants a committed partner. Now he's back to square one. Really, he has no right to tell her to stop dating because _he's_ sleeping with her and wants the relationship over as soon as possible, but everything with her feels right and good, and he wants to cling to her, as dangerous as that is.

"Kakashi," she interrupts his silent diatribe, "I want to keep us simple. A date with Kiba isn't going to be a marriage, but if things go further then I'll be the one to decide. I'll finish up here. You can go on home."

She gives him a quick peck and shoos him out the window, laughing when he eyeballs her like she's a crazy hen. Night has fallen. He has an aftertaste of Ino inside him, an image branded into his mind, and he feels nothing can ruin his mood except that when he gets home, a message scroll waits for him on the counter. Lady Hokage has summoned him in the morning for another mission. No other details are given, so Kakashi goes to bed and attempts to evade emptiness and loneliness by thinking about his talisman, Ino.

* * *

**A/N: ** Another biggie. I can't resist drama. Let there be more! Let me know thoughts and feelings, if you would be so kind. Until next time.


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